Assistant Professor Tureen Afroz of the School of Law presented the Key Note Paper, 'Energy Consumers' Bill of Rights for Bangladesh' at the Discussion Meeting on 'Drafting the "Energy Consumers" Bill of Rights for Bangladesh', jointly organized by the Consumers' Association of Bangladesh (CAB), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Association of the Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) at CIRDAP Auditorium, Dhaka on 22 April 2007.
The meeting was attended and actively participated by the members of the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC), Power Development Board (PDB), Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industries (DCCI), Nagorik Shomaj, LawDev (Bangladesh), Farmers' Voice, German Development Cooperation and many other social workers and energy sector activists.
In her keynote presentation, Tureen highlighted the current status of 'energy insecurity' suffered by the energy consumers in Bangladesh. She claimed that according to the Constitution of the Peoples' Republic of Bangladesh, the people are the actual owner of all energy resources However Tureen stated that the consumers in Bangladesh had been suffering a lot because of the continuous mismanagement in the energy sector. She explored the status of energy consumers in reference to each of the broad categories of energy, such as, gas, electricity, coal, petroleum and renewable energy. Tureen sketched out the current regulatory structure of Bangladesh energy sector and criticized its major limitations. She argued that BERC should play a more people-friendly role to protect the rights of common people. Tureen also stressed the need to have an Energy Consumers' Bill of Rights to protect the rights of Bangladeshi energy consumers.